


make it work make it better

by orphan_account



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eleanor and Tahani fake date for five seconds
Relationships: Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 1
Kudos: 91





	make it work make it better

"Tahani, don't you think it's so brave of your sister to come out?" her mother drawls.

Tahani tightens her grip on her fork.

"As an LGBT ally?" she asks, stabbing her mutanjan with murderous intent. "Not particularly, no."

"I always knew you'd experiment someday, Kamilah," her father muses. "What with your many, many suitors of both genders. I'm very proud of you for finally finding the courage to share this part of yourself with us."

"I only regret that I didn't come out earlier. With my influence, just think of how many people I could have helped with my presence," Kamilah says with a serene face even more punchable than usual. "Although I suppose a few extra years of oppression is nothing that can't be fixed."

"I'm sorry, just so I'm perfectly clear, you haven't actually done anything for the LGBT community yet," Tahani cuts in through gritted teeth. "You've just, announced your support. Without helping anyone."

Kamilah gives her a withering look. "Announcing my support is helping everyone."

"Of course, of course, obviously, so you tell your friends that you 'appreciate Moonlight despite its mainstream zeitgeist' and now all of a sudden you're a gay icon. Wonderful." 

"Gay icon?" Kamilah raised her eyebrows. "Bisexuals exist, Tahani."

Tahani breathes in. She exhales very, very slowly. She makes a drastic decision.

-

"-so I mean, is she hot? Yeah," Eleanor concludes, flopping backwards on her bed. "But other than that she's just not someone who it's worth my time to think about."

Chidi flips to the next page in his book. "Eleanor, I just asked whether or not you or Jason have started the Biology homework yet."

"Oh. No." Eleanor snorts and turns her head towards him. "You're the resident nerd, man, you should know by now that us two boners are just waiting for you to start so we can secretly copy your work."

Chidi's head snaps up. "You two copy my work?"

Eleanor sighs. She hates that she probably knew exactly what his face looks like right now, eyes wide and shocked and adorable, hates that she still feels a twinge of fondness in her stomach at the thought. She hates that there's no goddamn universe where she gets over her stupid crush on her stupid best friend. 

Eleanor swallows and rolls over, blinking sweetly. "Course not, Professor Anagonye. Right, Jason?"

She nudges him with her foot, and he awakes from the ground with a start.

"Oh, yeah, Kamilah's wack," he says, sitting up abruptly and rubbing his eyes.

Eleanor frowns. "What? Dude, what are you talking about?"

He looks up at her with his typically confused doe eyes and leans back on his hands. "You know, Kamilah? The girl you've been angry about for the last forty minutes?" 

"Uh, okay, it hasn't been forty m -" Eleanor looks up at the clock and looks back down at Jason. "And anyway, I was talking about Tahani. Her sister?"

Jason furrows his eyebrows. "Who's Tahani?"

"Who's-" Eleanor jolts upward. "She's in Chidi's art class? My civics class? Our homeroom?" 

Jason shakes his head. "Never heard of her."

"She's–" Eleanor rolls her eyes. "She's the most popular girl in school?" 

"No, that's definitely Kamilah," Jason says.

"What? No. Really?"

"Yeah, it's definitely Kamilah," Chidi cuts in. "I can say that objectively. And that's coming from me."

"Wow." Eleanor scrunches her nose. "So Kamilah's really all that."

"You know she came out as a ligbit ally last week?" Jason asks, absentmindedly spinning the swivel chair by Eleanor's desk.

"Well, technically she just said she liked a movie, but I guess people have decided it's basically the same thing," Chidi notes. 

"Oh." Eleanor laughs. "Well, maybe she can be an ally to this ligbit by chopping her sister's hair off for me. I mean, it's way too goddamn perfect to exist on the same planet as chili fries and racism."

"Cool. Great, so," Chidi starts carefully. "Do you want to start the Bio homework now, or -"

"Like, seriously, did she trade having a decent personality to a sea witch in exchange for miracle conditioner?" Eleanor says, throwing her hands in the air. "Because her hair is like, dark magic shiny."

Chidi sighs and pulls out a lab worksheet. Jason goes back to sleep. 

-

Tahani spends the entirety of civics trying to build up the nerve to talk to Eleanor before ultimately deciding that it would be better to meet her in the parking lot after school, where no one could eavesdrop. 

She leans against against Eleanor's rusted van, tapping her foot nervously against the concrete. Tahani knows for a fact that it's Eleanor's car, and she knows that Eleanor goes home by herself late on Tuesdays. She even knows that it's because she stays an extra half hour to talk to the history teacher, who she was actually friends with. She doesn't know exactly why she knows all this. She supposes that whatever the reason she's lucky she noticed somehow.

Tahani knows her plan is insane, and that there's little to no guarantee Eleanor would even agree to it. The last conversation they had was lasted less than thirty seconds and was entirely about some man named Stone Cold Steve Austin. (Tahani had gone home and looked him up afterwards and she still didn't understand a thing Eleanor had said.) The jump from half minute Steve Austin conversations to what Tahani was proposing was a rather large leap. But she has no choice. Eleanor is her sole hope.

As if on cue, Eleanor walks out of the school gates, swinging her ring of keys around her finger with a crooked grin. Tahani's heart speeds up. This is her moment, her one chance. She takes a deep breath and waves at Eleanor with a winning smile.

Eleanor's eyes meet Tahani's and narrow instantly. Tahani smiles harder and tries to channel Meghan Markle at the Royal wedding (which she'd attended).

"Uh," Eleanor starts, crossing her arms, walking over hesitantly. "What are you doing here?"

"I have a proposal," Tahani says. "It's a little strange."

"A proposal? We haven't even started dating yet," Eleanor smirks. 

Tahani feels her face heat up. This was not as easy as she thought it'd be.

"That's - a surprisingly relevant statement," she forces out. 

"I mean if you did propose I totally would say yes, but only like, to make this sexy fireman I know jealous," Eleanor adds.

"As you may know, my sister recently declared herself publicly to be an LGBT ally," Tahani pushes on, deciding to ignore Eleanor's comment after trying and failing to think of a response. "And I think as a–noted bisexual, you'd agree that the praise for such a decision has been overblown, to say the least."

Eleanor raises her eyebrows. "If you're trying to rope me into some sort of gay marriage protest, just know that I'm not really interested in–"

"No, that's not–"

"–being your token bi at some rally just–"

"It's–"

"–to make you look even more perfect than you already–"

"Please just date me," Tahani says exasperatedly, words pouring out before she could consider them.

Eleanor stops and shuts her mouth. She opens it again as if to say something but nothing comes out. She looks like she's feeling every emotion possible and she can't decide which one to express first. 

Tahani's mouth goes dry. This isn't even close to how she'd hoped it would go. Nothing in her life has ever gone this badly without Kamilah's influence, so she was entirely unprepared for the train wreck she'd stumbled into. 

Was Kamilah somehow ruining this from afar? Tahani would believe it. If anyone could do it, it would be Kamilah.

"Not–not like we're actually dating," Tahani corrects hurriedly. "Just to pretend for a while, to show my sister that using the LGBT community as an accessory for popularity is morally bankrupt–"

"–and your plan to do that was to use a member of the LGBT community as an accessory for popularity," Eleanor says with a laugh, shoving past Tahani and opening her car door. "Wow. I can't believe how completely right and tremendously wrong I was about how I thought this conversation was going to go."

"Eleanor, wait, I–" 

Tahani reaches out to stop her, but Eleanor turns around anyway before she can touch her. 

"Look, I can respect a scheme that ridiculous and self-centered, no sarcasm, really, but personally, I don't think I want to get involved, it sounds like a lot of work," Eleanor says, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "I wish you the best of luck finding another 'noted bisexual', though, and I promise I won't rat on you about this to the school."

"I implore you to reconsider."

"Why should I? Do you even know what you're doing? I mean, do you really think dating me–" Eleanor gestures towards herself sharply as if to encompass everything loaded into that word. "–is somehow going to make you popular? Like, come on. Look at you. I'm not your step up. If you really think you have to go girl, why not ask some other chick to pretend date you?"

"It's not that they can't, my friend Cate's made half her living off successfully pretending to be a lesbian," Tahani insists. "I just–believe that you would be best for the role."

"Why the hell is that?"

Tahani swallows. Well. 

"Because you...set a precedent," Tahani finishes lamely. "It's more believable, from you, the plausibility of-."

"Okay, you're lying to me, I get it, I get it," Eleanor says, putting up her hands and leaning back against her car. "Don't tell me if you don't want to, even though it makes you sound, just, way shadier than you already are. How about this: why should I care about your quest to look better than your sister?"

"I'm on a quest to make a compelling point about justice," Tahani corrects. "By proving my sister is a phony hack."

"Look, again, no judgement, but you're going to prove she's phony by lying?" 

"It's not like that, entirely," Tahani protests. "It's not–it's not the way you think it is."

Eleanor tilts her head. "Then what way is it, exactly?"

Tahani purses her lips. 

She doesn't know why she can't just say it. It would make everything so much easier. She wasn't scared–she knew there was nothing wrong with herself, and that the last person to judge her would be Eleanor Shellstrop, who'd been out since her first day she transferred to their high school. There's absolutely no reason not to. It's completely ridiculous that she hasn't already said it. She should just say it. 

"I'm sure there'd be something in it for you in this arrangement," Tahani says instead, voice careful. "What about that thing you said earlier? About the sexy fireman?"

"I think that thing was called a joke?"

"Okay, fine. Chidi, then?"

Eleanor turns red, and Tahani knows she's hooked onto something.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eleanor says unconvincingly.

Tahani smiles again, straightening her shoulders. "Well, maybe if there's someone out there you want to make jealous."

And now Tahani knows she has the upper hand again, and she knows Eleanor will agree, because Eleanor has been completely and obviously in love with Chidi Anagonye from the moment they met. 

And Tahani knows it without a shadow of doubt, because she'd done everything in her power to resist that conclusion. It wasn't fair, she told herself, to entertain such a theory about them just because they were best friends who happened to be of the opposite gender. It was presumptuous, rude, some would say heteronormative. But in the end, it was too obvious to be denied. The way Eleanor talked about him, looked at him, smiled at him, all of it radiated a soft fondness that could only mean love. Sometimes it was hard to watch, even, how thoroughly smitten Eleanor was with someone so oblivious to her pining. Tahani's heart stings in sympathy just thinking about it. But it was sweet, really, and Tahani's sure once Chidi notices they'll make a wonderful couple.

"I know this is a lot to ask," Tahani notes after Eleanor doesn't speak for a while. "But–I–please. I need this, I need you, just for a while."

"I don't–this is still a terrible idea," Eleanor says with a laugh. "This is fucking ridiculous, babe."

"It's not that terrible," Tahani replies defensively.

"No, no, it definitely is," Eleanor says, climbing into her car and starting the ignition. "But I mean, fuck it, I've agreed to worse. See you tomorrow in civics?"

-

"Mom, I'm home," Eleanor calls out as a joke before leaping onto her bed and dialing Jason's number. 

"She wants to fake date," Eleanor yells into the receiver at full volume. "And I said yes for some reason and now I'm fake dating Tahani Al-Jamil somehow and I checked twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming or high so this must actually be happening so what the fuck." 

"Oh. Neat," a distinctly non-Jason voice says, and yep, she was talking to Pillboi.

Which was fine, because he and Jason were equally safe people to tell anything. For a long time Eleanor had gone back and forth wondering whether Jason was too dumb to keep a secret or too dumb not to keep a secret, but eventually she cracked under the pressure to tell literally anyone about her crush on Chidi and discovering he fell definitively in the latter category. Eleanor's not sure if he forgets or doesn't understand or understands deep down what information is sacred. His mind works in mysterious ways. Now she goes to Jason (and occasionally, accidentally, Pillboi) with all her problems, because she trusts Chidi, really, she does, but she wants to spare him all the nervous breakdowns he'd have trying to lie about who caused the Great Gym Fire of 2016.

"Hey Pillboi," Eleanor says wearily, because Pillboi is a great source of inadvertent wisdom and free weed, but explaining things to one Jason is hard enough. 

"Yo, you and Tahani are dating? That's great, man!" Jason pipes up, voice distant and tinny. 

"Well, first of all, we're just fake dating, second of -"

A crashing sound and a recording of what she's pretty sure is dolphin sex suddenly rings out from Jason and Pillboi's end. They don't seem to react to it. Eleanor goes on. 

"Second of all, it's not a good thing that I'm dating - fake dating - Tahani."

"But I thought you wanted to?" Jason's voice, clearer this time, responds. 

"Dude, I hate Tahani."

"Yeah?"

Eleanor groans. "So dating her is going to be a nightmare?"

"Oh." Jason considers that for a moment. "So...you want me to help you get out of it?"

Faintly, the sound of Pillboi yelling unintelligibly begins before breaking off into a fit of laughter. 

Eleanor sighs. "No, I'm doing this, I can't back out now."

"Thennnnnnn...I don't know what the problem is."

"Because...I mean..." Eleanor groans. Great, she was more oblivious than Jason now. Of course. 

She doesn't even know why she said yes in the first place, really. It was just...Tahani. And her Tahaniness. And her I need you. Eleanor had never seen Tahani be that sincere before - hell, she'd never seen her be sincere at all. It was so striking, she probably just agreed out of shock.

"Never mind, you're right," Eleanor says in defeat. "I guess I'm just gonna have to deal with it, right?"

"So are you gonna have to fake have sex, or would you -"

"No, we're not going to fake have sex," Eleanor says sharply, except great, now she's imagining it, as if this conversation wasn't excruciating enough.

"I dunno, Pillboi and I didn't have sex when we were pretending to date and nobody thought we were boyfriends."

"You and Pillboi pretended to date once?" 

"We're still doing it, bro," Jason sighs mournfully. "It's really not going so great."

"Well, people are going to know we're dating, we'll -" 

Eleanor stops. Actually, she's not really sure how they're going to get people to know they're dating. They can't exactly pass out flyers announcing their status, but if they make it too subtle (that is, be any degree of subtle at all) there's no way they wouldn't just get brushed off as gal pals. 

"Fuck," she says. "Maybe Tahani has a plan."

-

"I hate this plan," Eleanor mutters under her breath as she and Tahani walk down the hallway with linked arms.

Tahani smothers a groan. She's not a big fan of it either, but she can't think of anything better. And Eleanor's ideas were unhelpful, to say the least. Even the ones that didn't revolve around elaborate diamond heists.

"It's not that hard, we just have to walk down this hallway back and forth acting like a couple until everyone gets the idea," she murmurs through a winning smile. "While acting natural."

Eleanor rolls her eyes and pulls away from Tahani. She's about to protest and convince Eleanor to maintain the ruse until Eleanor gets close again and slips her arm around Tahani's waist, drying up all the words in Tahani's mouth. 

Eleano stands on the tips of her toes to whisper in Tahani's ear. "If you want natural, maybe we shouldn't be walking around like we're fifth graders assigned to be ballroom dancing partners." 

Tahani can feel Eleanor's breath on her ear, feel her nerves tingling and where their skin makes contact. She searches for the proper response to the situation and falls short.

Eleanor's grin falters at Tahani's expression. "Sorry, I guess I didn't think that through, I-"

"No, it's fine," Tahani gets out. "We're dating. We can do dating things."

Eleanor frowns. "Like, any dating thing?"

"Well, nothing you're uncomfortable with, obviously," Tahani adds hastily. "I'll be exercising the utmost restraint, of course."

Eleanor rolls her eyes. "Thanks. Like that'll be so hard for you." 

She stops at the end of the hallway and leans against a locker. 

"Can't we just tell you're friends we're dating?" Eleanor says.

Tahani purses her lips. Truthfully, she wouldn't know who to tell. She didn't really have friends so much as she had interesting company, people she could talk to at parties but never one on one. Usually people found out about her relationships through gossip and hearsay. Last time people found out about her relationship with the third Hemsworth because they were spotted together at Coachella. 

"Why do the rumour mill's job for it? We're the power couple, not the paparazzi," Tahani says, only half lying. 

Eleanor groans. "Oh, for the love of-"

She stands on her tip toes and kisses Tahani on the cheek, eyes scrunched closed. 

Ah, Tahani thinks. Well.

"Do you think they got the message now?" Eleanor says under her breath.

Tahani looks around the hallway. It definitely worked, several people were looking their way. Tahani would never have taken Eleanor to be a shy person, but she could swear even she was blushing from the attention. It was a nice look on her. It suited her well. 

"Yes," Tahani says. "I think they understand."


End file.
